Project by Logan; Ping Pong Launcher

[Logan110404]

Logan110404 just shared a new project: “Ping Pong Launcher”

I like to take on projects that give me an opportunity to learn new things.
For this project, my two goals were to learn more about face detection algorithms and PID controllers but of course, there were so many more skills learned along the way.The launcher moved thanks to a stepper motor and a servo providing tilt and pan motion. The raspberry pi captures images and identifies the position of a face in the image. A PID controller calculates how much to move the launcher and sends a signal to an Arduino nano which controls the movement of the launcher. When the launcher is centered on someone’s face, two spindle motors spin up and a continuous servo loads a ball to be fired. The whole launcher was designed from scratch and 3d printed.

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[Oliver33]

@Logan110404

I was again fortunate and found that within about 2 meters of the launcher, the ball is travelling so fast that the parabolic trajectory can be approximated as a straight line. Given that I didn’t see a use case for the launcher beyond that range, it meant I got to approximate away my problems and just forget about them!

Spoken like a true engineer! Nice work

[Bryce]

@Oliver33

@Logan110404

I was again fortunate and found that within about 2 meters of the launcher, the ball is travelling so fast that the parabolic trajectory can be approximated as a straight line. Given that I didn’t see a use case for the launcher beyond that range, it meant I got to approximate away my problems and just forget about them!

Spoken like a true engineer! Nice work

Agreed. This is an awesome little project, at short distances, I believe the ‘close-enough’ design feature would work quite nicely